Rule #1: Never apologize for talking while muted. Don't even recognize it. The explanations are stale and uninteresting. Everyone does it. Just unmute and get on with it.

Rule #2: Never "give back time" at the end of a meeting. Ever heard this one when a meeting ends before the scheduled end time: "I will give you back eight minutes of your time". That time was never given to me, I don't have to give it back. Actually, the time of meeting participants can't be given to me—trust me, I would take it and save it somewhere and use it later when I needed it. That time is either being invested in relationship building or information sharing or decision making or something useful, or it's just being thrown out into the street. Are we done with the business of the meeting? OK, great. End the meeting and get on with it.

Online meetings are often painfully bad. Want to make them better? Get on with it.